SGER: Fixing the Means to the Past in a Period of Social Upheaval -- Life History and Traditional Environmental Knowledge in Kamchatka, Russia

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract Koester OPP - 0333703 This award is being recommended as a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) The Principal Investigator will recover and preserve the documentary material on the life history of native Itelmen educator Tatiana Petrovna Lukashkina. Lukashkina died in 1999 and left a substantial personal archive that is in great need of cataloguing and conservation. This archive consists of over 2,000 historical photographs, new clippings, and personal writings. Due to the current social and economic disarray in the former Soviet Union, which is all the more extreme in the remote villages of Kamchatka, if action is not taken quickly these unique records will undoubtedly be lost. In addition, the PI will do the preliminary community consultation process with various Kamchatka indigenous communities to secure their participation in future research projects on sustained development of local cultural traditions.